Oooh, that sounds like something I've on-and-off been trying to get called "recovery!fic" over the years, because it's definitely something I'd like to be able to find: kind of like hurt/comfort, except the 'hurt' is 'my life has been terrible for years and years' rather than some specific thing, and the 'comfort' is 'I've just realized it doesn't have to be like that, and I'm going to work to change it' rather than being more relationship-focused like standard h/c often is.

My ur-example is this long Buffy fic I've never been able to find again where Spike (post-soul) is just like I've had enough apocalypses and leaves Sunnydale to be a poetry teacher at a community college, and Buffy goes looking for him and when he won't come back or talk to her, signs up for his poetry class, then slowly realizes she is allowed to just live in a quiet little town and be content if she wants that, too.